Temporal — Getting started

Temporal is an open-source workflow engine that manage and execute reliable, durable and fault-tolerant workflows in a distributed manner. But the only way to use it in PHP is with RoadRunner. It makes it super easy to integrate your PHP app with Temporal, so you can start using it right away.

One cool thing about Temporal is that you can write your workflows and activities in any supported language. So for example, you could have a workflow written in PHP, but handle some of the activities with code written in Go or vice versa. This can be really helpful if you have a team with different language preferences, or if you want to take advantage of the strengths of different languages for different tasks.

Use Temporal when you have to manage complex data flows or ensure reliable transaction processing across multiple business domains. it provides timers, retry mechanisms and much more.

#Installation

Spiral offers seamless integration with the Temporal workflow engine. By installing the spiral/temporal-bridge package, you can easily use Temporal within your application.

Install the spiral/temporal-bridge package by running the following composer command:

composer require spiral/temporal-bridge

After the package is installed, you will need to activate the component using the bootloader:

protected const LOAD = [
    // ...
    \Spiral\TemporalBridge\Bootloader\TemporalBridgeBootloader::class,
];

#Temporal Server

You can run temporal server via docker by using the example below:

Note
You can find official docker compose files here.

version: '3.5'

services:
  postgresql:
    container_name: temporal-postgresql
    image: postgres:13
    environment:
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: temporal
      POSTGRES_USER: temporal
    ports:
      - 5432:5432

  temporal:
    container_name: temporal
    image: temporalio/auto-setup:1.14.2
    depends_on:
      - postgresql
    environment:
      - DB=postgresql
      - DB_PORT=5432
      - POSTGRES_USER=temporal
      - POSTGRES_PWD=temporal
      - POSTGRES_SEEDS=postgresql
      - DYNAMIC_CONFIG_FILE_PATH=config/dynamicconfig/development.yaml
    ports:
      - 7233:7233
    volumes:
      - ./temporal:/etc/temporal/config/dynamicconfig

  temporal-web:
    container_name: temporal-web
    image: temporalio/web:1.13.0
    depends_on:
      - temporal
    environment:
      - TEMPORAL_GRPC_ENDPOINT=temporal:7233
      - TEMPORAL_PERMIT_WRITE_API=true
    ports:
      - 8088:8088

Warning
Please make sure that a configuration file for temporal server exists. mkdir temporal && touch temporal/development.yaml.

#Configuration

Configure temporal address via env variables .env

TEMPORAL_ADDRESS=127.0.0.1:7233

Or create a temporal.php configuration file in the app/config directory. This file allows you to specify options such as the address, namespace, default worker, and individual worker configurations.

Note
The default configuration should work for most cases, so you only need to modify this file if you need to change the default settings.

Here is an example configuration:

use Temporal\Worker\WorkerFactoryInterface;
use Temporal\Worker\WorkerOptions;

return [
    'address' => env('TEMPORAL_ADDRESS', '127.0.0.1:7233'),
    'namespace' => 'App\\Application\\Workflow',
    'defaultWorker' => WorkerFactoryInterface::DEFAULT_TASK_QUEUE,
    'workers' => [
        'workerName' => WorkerOptions::new()
    ],
];

In your RoadRunner configuration file .rr.yaml, add a temporal plugin section. This will allow you to specify the address of your Temporal server, as well as the number of workers for your activities:

...

temporal:
  address: localhost:7233
  activities:
    num_workers: 10

Note
For more information on configuring the Temporal plugin in RoadRunner, check out the documentation here.

That's it! Happy workflow building!